Asteroid Blues

DISCLAIMER:
First of all, I shall to explain what my army is. As I began to play Infinity, I started out with PanOceania, yet I always liked the cyberpunk part of this universe, i.e. all those corporations, mercenaries, PMCs, espionage etc. So my army is actually the private corporative enforces from the «Ascension» Corporation - the contractor company, which works for PanOceanian military, developing and selling out weapons. Because of this, «Ascension» able to equip it's forces with gear which looks exactly like PanOceanian, yet it's targets and activities in the Human Sphere could be far from what the official forces trying to fulfill.
Second: For the same reason, I am more interested in the story and narration of this campaign, rather than in the competitive part, so my reports would be more of the narrative story-driven things, instead of the cold and dry facts and retell of the actual battle in details.
And the last but not the least, please bear with me: English is not my native language, so I apologize in advance for any possible grammar mistakes.
Thank you, and hope you will enjoy the read!

***Encrypted transmission. Break protocol level: Photep***

From: Alexia Evenger. CEO of the "Ascension" corporation.
To: Colonel Oleg Borisov-Kinsley. Head of the "Ascension" corporation's private military corps.
Subject: Operation "Empty hand"

Dear Colonel.

As always, I would be straight and blunt with you. Our assets at the Novyy Bangkok asteroid colony are at risk, because of O-12 witch hunt for shasvastii and following international blockade of the station and nearby jump gates. Our investments into the operation "Empty hand" against Nomad nation and section of the Bank of Tunguska at Novyy Bangkok could be comprised, so we have to increase the speed of the events, and apply additional pressure. Lets use the current situation of the international invasion at the station for our own benefits, and use it as a smoke screen for our own actions.
We will have to hit fast, smooth and mercilessly, without leaving any trace, which could connect us with the upcoming data heist.
As usually, I am counting on you and your people, and I am sure that your professionalism and loyalty reinforced with the pleasant bonus to your next paycheck will be more than enough to fulfill this mission.
As always, the local “Showrunner” operative will provide you with all further information.

Best Regards.

CEO Evenger.

From: Colonel Oleg Borisov-Kinsley.
To: Lieutenant Henry "Leprechaun" Holland. - Officer of the "Oxide-4" battlegroup.
Subject: Operation "Blink of ALEPH's eye"

Glad to have you aboard Henry. The task in hand is surely complicated, so is the payment from the cold b***h Evenger at the end. She wants us one more time to cover the corporate backdoor and steal "something something important weapon research s**t data" from Nomad's crypt on the Novyy Bangkok before the international armada, which were assembled by O-12 will burn down the entire colony to ashes in their search for shasvastii agents. We, with clever boys from analytic section, worked out the plan, which will help us make Nomads vulnerable for our heist and perform it traceless. The plan is divided into few steps and first one is to make our "beloved" Big Brother AI blind for the short moment. We will move down into the Gallery Maze halls and passages and find out the remote antenna unit, which connected with the main grid, which provide ALEPH with the data about all what happening in the colony. Damaging or destroying said antennas would cause the short disturbance in ALEPH's overview of the Novyy Bangkok. Probably short enough that O-12’s smarta***s won't even notice it. But it will be enough for our transport ship to land in the Liberty Cargo spaceport unnoticed by "all seeing eye". The said ship has important equipment, which is vital for our plan. I attach the detailed plan of the operation to this letter, as well as the list of our operatives who I suppose will be useful to assist you with such delicate task.

Good luck.

Henry Holland reread the letter one last time, before opening the attached file to check up all details one more time. The holographic screen flashed above his comlog, showing the messed up map of the underground labyrinth, which ALEPH's troops turned into filed base. Henry hummed, looking over the dots, arrows and extra notes added by him during the planning. All while right over his ear, behind the metal wall, roared the engine of the heavy transport shuttle. The shuttle without any marks and logos quickly descended into the pitch-black darkness of the Gallery Maze. Unnoticed by O-12 outpost's sensors, shuttle reached the lowest levels of the location. Behind the front windows was visible massive statue of Buddha, poorly lightened by shuttle's almost turned off lights. Henry looked over his shoulder on rest of the team members. Medic of the squad kept her sunglasses on even here in the darkest part of the Gallery Maze. The hacker crouched down near the massive EVO unit and seems to quietly talk to the machine. Both "clean-upers" and their Auxbots remain silent and looked at same point. The sniper... Sniper was somewhere lurking from shadows with her termo-optical camouflage being turned on. The blonde mercenary with massive missile launcher and scrapped off PanO logos on armor's shoulders chewed the bubble gum. Bulky guy with blue beret on his head nodded to Henry like if asking "Whaz up, boss?". Henry smirked. Creepy fellas. Just exactly what you need for the shady covert ops.
The engine's roaring changed the tone and the shuttle heavily landed on the ground. The lamp above the door changes the color from dark red to the bright green and the door slide to the side.
- "Alright, "bois n gurls"" , - Henry stood up and switched his trusty rifle into the single-bullet shooting mode, - "Lets make those robotic "beep-boopers" the way which they won't like!"
Operative jumped out of the shuttle and walked few steps from the transport into the dark tunnel ahead. With edge of his sense he felt light breeze - the sniper still in termo-optical ran near him and disappeared somewhere in darkness, searching for suitable position for her and her deadly weapon. Behind Henry's back large lights turned on as two massive Bulleteer armbots freed themselves from the magnetic locks on the bottom of the shuttle. Massive drones lightened up the walls of the tunnel, scanning their surroundings and searching for the enemies to feed with bullets from their spitfires.
The operation has begun...

...Wo Min - the squad's hacker - grinned, baring his teeth, as he crouched down near his EVO Mulebot. Screens and rings of data flashed and float around both man and the machine, visible only for this two. Somewhere in the depth of the stone labyrinth red lights of enemy hackers blinked brightly, but they were too far, out of reach and plus Wo Min didn't want to risk his brain, trying to enroll any SWORD-type programs against ALEPH itself. Instead of this, he patted "back" of EVO-bot and connected to one of the two old workhorses of the squad: heavy PanOceanian Bulleteers. The old machines equipped with spitfires surely saw lots of battles during their long lives, but still were valuable assets of the squad. During enemy attacks EVO kept them under Overclock, breaching their own safety protocols and forcing their weapons to shoot faster than the default preset speed. During the squad offense, hackers switched roles and Wo Min helped his "old metal cans" to shoot out bad guys with incredibly precise by Assisting their fire.
And so was happening now, as one of Bulleteers slowly but steady approached the fireteam of Dakinis, ready to turn annoying robots with heavy weapons into the pieces of garbage. Wo Min licked his lips, when silhouette of one of Dakinis was caught into the aim-lock and entire figure flashed red in the virtual interface.
- "Okay, champ, make daddy proud", - whispered hacker, when Bulleteer opened fire, sending storm of the bullets into the fireteam's position...

...The engineer cursed out again, as his tactical visor got another red flash of notification.
- "Are you kidding me?!" - he mumbled annoyed, when got that report came from same Fugazi drone, which he repaired a moment ago. - "In what kind of mess you got yourself now, lil fella?"
Engineer reestablished the connection with his servant - fast palbot named "Handy Larry" and whistled, observing the damage.
The poor Fugazi looked like the pile of smoking garbage pierced by the HMG's bullets. In one brave leap palbot reached the fallen comrade and transformed it's hand into the multitool.
- "Well that will require more than just lots of blue duct tape." - Engineer whispered to himself, getting ready to repair brave Fugazi - which controlled almost half of the zone of operation by it's Flash pulse - for the fourth time in a row...

- "Can anybody shut up that “robo-missle thingy” already?" - Mercenary with missile launcher yelled out when another explosion shook the entire old storage facility on top of which the merc took his position.
The doctor near him covered ears after one more blast. Then the sudden flaw of the wind and flash of light made both mercenaries blink surprised. Out of nowhere stepped out transparent figure whose body glistered like the oil on the water surface. The next moment the termo-optical camouflage slide down from the sniper who stepped graciously toward the edge of the roof.
She gave both mercs a quick glance.
- "Easy lads, I am here to cover your pity backs. Now give me some space to work".
Sniper put up her long-range sniper rifle and hummed aiming at the Proxy Mk5 with heavy rocket launcher who lurked in the shadows near abandoned transport vessel.
The next second Proxy’s critical hit vaporized sniper into burst of flame, without even giving her a single chance to shoot.
Both mercs looked to each other, while ashes and pieces of broken gear still smoked near them.
- "Well looks like it is now only us two left here..." - finally breathed out mercenary with missile launcher...

...Henry Holland ran through the passage between large metallic crates and cargo containers. The Meta-Chemistry cocktail of stimpacks boiled within his blood, making his leg's muscles increase in strength and endurance. That provided the CSU operative with inhuman speed and agility and so he abused it, crossing almost half of the zone of operation in the mere moments. From time to time, he looked at the flashing dot on the screen of his comlog. The source of the signal approached and Henry clenched his teeth. In one quick dash, he cut the route and reached the source, observing his target. In front of him, showing his back to Henry, stayed a person in O-12 uniform. The talented data-engineer, who was responsible for the entire information flow in this area. His death will surely cause the collapse of the data control in the whole region. This would be strike from which other O-12 maintenance teams won't be able to recover any time soon. Henry smirked and raised his left hand. His augmented fist opened, letting out the swarm of deadly nanobots from Nanopulser. The swarm flew toward the engineer, but in the very last moment the O-12 worker vanished in the air, dodging the cone of the killing nanomachines.
The next moment missile hit the wall behind Henry. The explosion tossed operative into the air and dragged him across the cold stone floor, while sharp pieces of burning metal pierced his flesh and bones. The last thing Henry Holland saw before the darkness flooded him, was Proxy Mk5 with heavy rocket launcher stepping out from the depth of the tunnel...

- "How the f**k he is so heavy? Looks quite fit and thin for me..." - Medic growled through clenched teeth as she dragged the bleeding body of Henry Holland back on the shuttle and dropped him on the floor.
Girl stand on her knees near heavily wounded executive operative and opened her medkit, trying to stabilize fallen commander. One after another, survived mercs jumped inside the shuttle, dropping on the one knee and shooting out their ammo into the Dakini tactbots who tried to surround the escaping transport. Last Bulleteer spit out the fire from its weapon and with audible "cling!" attached itself to the magnetic locks on the bottom of the shuttle.
- "Everyone is on-board?" - pilot shouted into the main section - "The bird won't last long under such fire!"
- Everyone, who still breathes! - yelled out one of the mercs, sliding the door.
Few bullets hit the door at the next second.
- "Get us out of here, already!"
- "Roger that..." - pilot switched some switches above his head.
Engines roared heavily and next moment the shuttle took off, flying fast into the barely visible crack in the far ceiling of the cave.
One after another Dakini bots lowered their still smoking weapons and followed the escaped transport with the empty look of their cold computer "eyes".

From: Colonel Oleg Borisov-Kinsley.
To: "Showrunner" - an anonymous controller of the "Ascension" corporation's operations in Novyy Bangkok
Subject: "Operation "Blink of ALEPH's eye"

The operation at the Gallery Maze went frustratingly under-average level of success. We were able to designate and disrupt signal only of the two antennas in the Grid. That gave enough time to the cargo transport to land in the Liberty Cargo facility, unnoticed and untraced, but we are not sure if this "unnoticed" status is real or ALEPH and O-12 actually aware of our actions and plotting out something. Additionally to that, we suffered sensitive casualties in our team of the operatives. Miraculously the medic of the squad managed to evacuate Henry "Leprechaun", but his conditions are far from stable and we not sure if he will be able to recover before the next step of the operation. Awaiting the further instructions.

From: "Showrunner"
To: Colonel Oleg Borisov-Kinsley.
Subject: RE: "Operation "Blink of ALEPH's eye"

Acceptable. Prepare for the second step of the plan. Instructions are incoming.

***End of transmission***